Do you believe in Destiny? (Attempt 2)
by Herofire
Summary: When Ruby and her team is thrown back to their first day at Beacon, they do what anyone would do when given the chance to set right what once went wrong. But the past is a slippery thing at the best of times, and this is about as far from "best of times" as you can get without the literal end of the world. For Team RWBY, destiny is no longer an idle curiosity-it's a threat.


Yang was utterly silent as she swung her legs over the edge of the school roof and flopped down; passing an orange coloured can to Blake.

"Tangerine soda?" she asked, keeping a wary on eye on the ingredients list.

Yang shrugged, leaning over the edge.

"It was all the machine had," she said. "Nice view."

Blake followed her eyes, gazing at the gushing fountain, at the forest, and the city beyond it all.

No one had ever crafted words to describe the feeling swelling in her chest, but if she was asked to describe it, she'd call it hope.

Hope, and the realisation Yang was about to fall off if she leaned any farther.

Her jacket felt rough against her fingers, although if that was because of the fights earlier today or something else, Blake couldn't tell. It was also completely pointless, since Yang slid to a safer seat without any outside effort.

If Yang even noticed, it didn't show.

"I can't believe we're actually doing this," she said, flexing her hands. "I still keep expecting to wake up in some hospital, with Dad hovering by my side, and Ruby..."

"She'd probably still be out here." Blake tore the tag off the can and took a sip. It wasn't bad, in truth. Overly sweet, and about as tangerine flavoured as a lollypop, but it didn't taste like the carbonated sugar water Ruby preferred.

Yang snorted. "Or dragging a garden into my room. Seriously, you should have seen what happened when Dad broke his leg."

"Maybe I did."

Something undistinguishable fell across her face. "Maybe."

The door behind them creaked open. Blake turned; hand on hilt, before white hair and a cape soothed her racing pulse.

"How am I not surprised?" Weiss drawled, arms crossed in a pseudo casual stance.

Yang shrugged, before she had to spit out a petal as Ruby claimed the next stretch of ledge.

Weiss slipped next to her as Blake spoke, "It's not like we're actually going to get any sleep tonight."

"We could try," Ruby offered, but her voice said just how little she believed in that.

"Or we could all watch horror movies," Yang said, her hands suddenly filled with a scroll. "We could fit four, maybe five, if we all glue our butts to a couch. With cement."

"We'd all have dry skin," Weiss warned. "Dry, flakey skin. And hair."

"Never mind everything I just said. Pretend I just got here."

They laughed, a sound caught between carefree teenagers sneaking out after curfew and a mental patient determining if their pills were alien invaders or government bombs.

It was a good end to the weirdest day anyone had ever had.

"So…" Ruby said, her legs swishing through the night air. "I talked to Jaune."

"Oh boy," Yang muttered.

"And it was fun." Ruby shrugged. "Weird too, but fun. I forgot what he was like back then—how he is now, err—"

"Time travel tense troubles," Blake said, chuckling. "Guess we can cross that one off our bucket list."

"Along with getting kicked in the face by the butterfly effect?" Yang asked, gesturing to her head—and her uncovered ears.

Blake glared at her, ears flattening against her hair.

Weiss snorted, blowing away a hair that had, in a suicidal moment, decided to obstruct her vision.

"At least you didn't have to deal with Mr. Team Dad…"

* * *

"Right! Of course I know you!" Weiss said, desperately holding in a glass vaporising scream. "Mr. Xiao-Long. Xiao. Mr. Xiao. Mr. Long?"

His blank eyes continued to stare at her.

"…Dad?"

Somewhere, Yang face palmed.

* * *

"How exactly was I supposed to react to a strange man hugging me?"

Blake shrugged. "You knew he was Ruby's father. What did you expect?"

Weiss did not pout. She did, however, glare petulantly at Blake, which in a more unfavourable view, could technically be called a pout.

"You did better than Ruby did with Pyrrha." Yang took a sip out of her can.

Ruby glared. "You promised—!"

"We saw it," Weiss reminded her, fighting against a smile.

Yang laughed. "Blushing and stammering the moment you tried to talk."

"Yang!"

"What?" Yang ruffled Ruby's hair. "Can't I tease my little sis about her first crush?"

"It's not a crush," Ruby insisted, softly. "It's just every time I see her, I remember the tower, and then I… I can't…"

The humor faded into the dark as Yang wrapped an arm around her sister and pulled her close.

"I know," she whispered, voice breaking and shoulders shaking, and for a moment, an air of abject fear settled over the quartet, heavy and cloying.

Weiss moved first, hesitantly raising her hand and settling it on Ruby's leg. In response, Ruby grabbed her shoulder and pulled her in, earning a small squeak from the heiress.

For a moment, all Blake could feel was envy, before Yang reached out a hand.

She didn't turn. It was less an invitation and more of expectation, but there was no force.

Blake waited, turning it over longer that she suspected was fair, before she moves over and let the arm fall around her shoulder, listening to Yang's frantic heartbeat.

There was only two paths in front of her.

One is familiar, crafted from memory and coated in flames, but it's not an ending.

It was a middle.

The other involves death and finality, and by doing this, by letting herself get swept away by the feeling of safety and warmth on this lonely rooftop, she only made it more likely.

But Yang's heartbeat turned soothing. Weiss's breath became steady and deep, joined in concert by Ruby.

Her own eyes grew heavy, and in that quiet moment between wakefulness and sleep, she thought, maybe, just maybe, there's a third path.

It's not an ending, but nor is it a middle.

Her mind surrendered to the embrace of sleep, and the four members of team RWBY, which has not yet formed and may never form, rested under the shattered moon until the sun rose to banish the night.


End file.
